How We Shine
by magicicada
Summary: Colin spins a story. Draco spins gold. And Ron spins out of control. Complete.
1. Nigredo

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**How We Shine**

**Part One: Nigredo **

_The alchemists in their search for gold discovered many other things of greater value._

-Arthur Schopenhauer

There are whispers rising up from the battlefields that the world is spinning towards its end. The soldiers, who were children just one summer ago, crouch together in curse-holes, mumbling that the hero is dead and the villain is dead and all of Wizarding England is about to follow them if the war isn't soon over. Sometimes, someone will look over to the one they were talking to— the one, who was nodding in agreement just moments ago and find that they wear the mark of the opposition on their arm. And sometimes, they will kill them and become a hero. And sometimes, they will be killed and be forgotten. And sometimes, something else will happen. There will be some slight spark of recognition and both will realize that they're looking at an old friend or dorm-mate or Quidditch rival or someone they may never have cared for but who once shared a table in the library and for many years shared a home— Hogwarts.

Everyone is connected, though most will deny these connections, in the end. Members of the Order lie side by side with Death Eaters on stretchers in mediwizard tents, and they flock to the food carts, fighting like brothers and sisters over the rations before wands are drawn. There is only one uniform these days— black robes covered in mud. There is only one side, and it's losing.

But it hasn't lost yet.

The castle still stands.

Far from the front, where the fighting is most bloody and far from the back and the shadows, where secrets are traded for lives, far the main towns and the cities that are still safe enough to inhabit, over rolling hills and past a dark forest, Hogwarts sits atop the rocks. It leans slightly more now than it once did like an old tree whose roots are dying, concerned not for what battles are won or lost, but only for the slight changes in the thickness of the air, which humans can barely decipher and for strong winds and cracks in its stones brought by winter cold and for the weight of a thousand years.

It still remembers something of magic, if buildings can be said to have memories. It remembers something of quick footsteps along its hallways and hushed whispers through its secret corridors, but those memories are fading, lost to the long silence and drowned in sick, black waters of the lake.

There are only three people in the castle now. Two are wandering through the highest towers searching for gold, and though they are not yet aware of him, there is another alone in the dungeons trying to make it.

You've always found something equal parts thrilling and terrifying about the first of the alchemical stages— the dark one. When you were younger, you would steal Flamel's journal from your father's study and read the words of those few beginning pages over and over again until your breath quickened and your blood ran cold, until you fell asleep with them dancing through your dreams, and you knew them by heart. And only then did you start to understand what they spoke of— something that was real, but not in the normal way of things— a deep down truth that would still hold when all the laws of nature and reason fell uselessly away. So, even now, there is something left in the world for you to believe in, something pure and perfect and unchanging. Because the truth is you _can_ live forever.

_The mixture is dark, and the mixture becomes the man. They cannot be separated until something is found in nothing— the prima materia— the love that can pull life from death. _

But you've never seen death. You've heard it before from outside closed doors. You've smelt it in the air, and tasted it like dust and dried blood mingling on the tip of your tongue. You've felt it. You feel it now, and you've seen it in your head a thousand times in the eyes of a thousand faces and then in just one pair of eyes, trapped behind thick, round glasses.

Death won't have any hold over you soon enough. That's what you tell yourself. Perhaps, you should have paid more attention in potions and not allowed Snape's favoritism and your father's name to carry you through so easily. But this isn't a potion, not only a potion, anyway.

You tried to gather what you would need quickly before running off to hide in the dungeons of Hogwarts. The war took its toll here more than anywhere else. They say that by Potter's final days, magic was all that held the castle together, and they also say that now it has no magic of its own left, that it was drained away by the effort of the fight. It will fall soon, no matter what half-hearted, last ditch effort the ministry puts in to save it. It will fall and so will everything else. It's only a matter of time, and if you manage what you hope to, you'll have all the time you need. They say only fools and desperate men would dare set foot through these doors. You tell yourself that you're the latter. It's a gamble, you know, and a chance, but it's the only one you have left.

White is the second stage— a time when offerings are made in the form of ballads and tales heroic deeds, and unprepared as usual, all you have is a copy of _Golden Boy: The Unauthorized Biography of Harry Potter _by Colin Creevey that you nicked from Flourish and Blotts three days ago. It's almost funny, really, that even now in the grips of war— of death, someone still manages to rise to the top, and they still make a hefty profit. Potter wasn't even cold in the ground before story of his life became a bestseller.

Potter, you think, is fine for books, books written by people like Creevey, full of cloying sentimentality and fractured truths. It just makes you realize all the more how a person like him had no right to exist in the real world, where he fumbled gracefully through everything, always managing to land on his feet or crush someone beneath them— where his shadow loomed too large and blocked out any fair shots for the people who weren't like him. As you see it, fate and destiny finally realized their error and interceded to correct it.

And now, you will do what Potter never could. You'll beat death. You'll live forever. You think of only that, and you try to keep out the whispers creeping in around the edges of your mind, telling you that you've just locked yourself in a dungeon to let mudbloods and muggle-lovers write the history of your world. All the same, you had at least expected Creevey would give you some vague, uncomplimentary reference. After all, you were the reason Potter first got on a broom to fly. You were there when he first laid eyes on the Dark Lord. And you were there when he died, even if you weren't watching. But you're not the only one left out of the retelling, and there is some slight vindication in that.

The weasel's name isn't mentioned in Creevey's book, not even once.

_He was born on the last day of the seventh month, and on the last day of the tenth month, his parents died. A year passed between his birth and their deaths, one spent hiding, shielded by spells spun of friendship and hope and a fragile trust that was broken, in the end, as most trusts eventually are. Swaddled in blankets woven by silkworms and spiders, he spent his childhood locked away from the sunlight in a cupboard with no hope of escape. But even the petty evils of his captors could not crush him, and as his magic grew stronger, he feigned obedience, and he silently waited for the day of his rescue— the day he could leave the little room of the little house and the little minded people who didn't care enough for him to keep a single picture._

Ron is used to unpleasant chores. No matter how much he's complained or whined or tried to get out of them, there has always been a rough voice in the back of his head saying, '_This is your lot, boy, and you better get used to it, because there'll come a time when you'll have to prove yourself, and no pouting or messing about will get you out of the job that needs doing_.' He supposes this could be that time, and maybe that's why he's here, but he quickly quashes all hopes of stepping up to join his brothers. This isn't as simple as de-gnoming the garden or cleaning the kitchen floor when the charms on his mother's self-scrubbing magical mop wear down and they can't afford to buy a new one. And the way his life has been going lately, he doubts he could manage to do even those things right.

"Rond . . ."

Harry was probably good at mopping and sweeping, just like he was good at everything else. He probably moved a broom across the floor as swiftly and easily as he did through the sky. They told Ron, when he was younger, how horrible Harry's life was before he came to Hogwarts, and a part of him knows it must have been true, because that's the first test of every hero— to survive their childhood unloved and unbroken. They never told him that love too can break. Like all of the hardest lessons, he had to learn that on his own.

"Rond . . ."

Professors lie when it suits them, and there's no real truth to be found in books. He'd never tell Hermione that, but deep down, he suspects she already knows. As he leafs through Dumbledore's old copy off _Hogwarts a History,_ all he can see is Godric Gryffindor standing guard over the newly built castle to slay any muggles who stumble upon it. He saw the tapestries hidden by black curtains in the disused towers— the slaughter and the spoils. He knows now how his house got its colors. Blood and money, that's what really maters. No hero can change that, no matter how tragic their childhood.

"Rondald!"

Poor Harry, always so put upon by fate, all the same Ron never saw Harry cleaning out bedpans. He doesn't see Harry doing much of anything these days, because Harry's dead, and inactivity is just one of those disagreeable side effects that comes along with it.

"Ih'd nod reald."

Ron shakes his head, trying to still his mind and looks over to the office's only other occupant, Luna Lovegood, who appears to be trying to eat a polished astrolabe from atop the headmaster's desk. "What?" he asks.

"Fade!" She catches his eye and puts it back on the desktop with a loud thump. "Fake," she repeats, voice finally decipherable now that the hunk of metal's been removed from her mouth. "It's all fake." She pulls her wand out of the knot of hair it's been holding in place on the top of her head and charms the astrolabe clean. "I'd break my teeth trying to bite any harder."

"Bloody hell!" he says, shoving his hands into his robe pockets, as if he'll find something there. "All of it?"

"Some of it might have a little gilding." She gives a strange smile and something like a sigh. "It's mostly just fool's gold."

"Perfect," Ron mutters under his breath. The irony of the situation is not lost on him. "Just perfect."

_At only eleven years old, it was clear that Harry Potter would become the greatest student that Hogwarts School had ever seen. But after his first year, he was forced to return to the home of his wicked aunt and cruel uncle and beastly cousin. And there he was kept in a tiny upstairs room with bars over the window and strong locks on the door to prevent him from escaping. He would have been trapped there all summer if not for the poorest of people, who, recognizing that he was their savior and only hope, endeavored to rescue him from the prison of that muggle house, using nothing more than a car charmed to fly. And in gratitude, he stayed with them at their humble dwelling, asking no more than to live among them as an equal and gladly ridding their garden of unwanted gnomes until it was time for him to return to Hogwarts, where he was happily returned to Hermione and Dean and Colin and all of his Gryffindor friends. _

Ron stumbles down a dark stairway a bit behind Luna, who floats along dreamily, stopping every few seconds to mutter a soft hello to the portrait canvases that now show only still, desolate landscapes.

"They're empty," Ron says, blinking and using a fingernail to chip some gold-colored paint from a splintering wooden frame. "Whoever was in them has been gone for a long time."

She hops down a few steps and peers into a frame holding a picture of an ocean that seems unnaturally calm and looks over to a small plaque on the wall beside it. "Dedicated to Hogwarts School for the enjoyment of future generations from the collection of Bilius Weasley," she reads aloud before turning back to Ron. "Was he a relative of yours?"

"Yes," Ron says stiffly. "He was my uncle."

Luna taps the picture with her wand a few times, as if that will get the waves moving again. "You have quite a big family, you know."

Ron winces. "I know," he says, "quite big." He doesn't want to think about his family right now. He doesn't want to think about his uncle, who died shortly after seeing the grim. He doesn't want to be told how lucky he is that his sister and all of his brothers are still alive and how proud he must be of all of them. But what Ron wants doesn't matter as much as it should. He's surprised when Luna doesn't say any of the normal things he's expecting to hear, which he should expect, really, because she's not normal.

"They must miss you," she says, "now that you're so far away."

Ron hops down the next few steps so he can walk ahead of her. "They don't," he says, looking back over his shoulder. "Trust me. They don't." He only left for Hogwarts two days ago, and he did it without telling any of them he was going. He doubts they'll notice he's not there anymore. They'll be too busy with their own plans and with the war and with the business of being spectacular.

Bill became famous early on for developing a method of neutralizing Dementors, a derivative of Occlumency, where holding onto a single constant thought could leave them completely immobilized. When strained happiness fails against enforced misery, the only defense is truth and occasionally indifference. Ron could never get it to work, though. He had many happy memories, but no certainties, and a part of him always suspected betrayal. Eventually, he stopped trying.

Charlie accidentally stumbled on a thirteenth use of dragon blood by getting it too close to a fire one night when he was supposed to be doing a routine health check for a few hatchlings. A single drop of the blood put out the flames, leaving the ground cold and the deeper soil sewn through with frost. He used this knowledge to extinguish the cursed fire at the ministry building and the accidental fire St. Mungo's, not only saving the lives of all the patients and healers but also protecting the fragile ingredients and the rare potions that would be needed as the war drew on. Ron heard about it on the wireless in the kitchen at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. He was eating a sandwich at the time.

Percy was, perhaps, the most celebrated. In the weeks after Lucius Malfoy escaped from Azkaban and took the ministry for himself, Percy never came home. Everyone thought he'd been taken hostage, or killed— actually, everyone thought something else entirely, but they liked to pretend otherwise. No one expected the building to fall— to be burnt down from the inside. No one expected the lone figure of Percy Weasley to be standing amidst the soot and rising ashes with a half cracked, still sparking wand clutched in his hand. Lucius Malfoy's body was never found, and Percy became a hero. No one ever mentioned the fact that he had been opposed to the Order, just as no one ever mentioned the black skull and serpent branded onto his left forearm. Ron almost said something once, when Percy called him lazy for staying in when some of the main rescue missions were going on, but then their mother walked in, and he started to choke on his own tongue.

Fred and George increased the potency of Skiving Snackboxes so that they worked on scent alone and caused anyone within a fifty foot radius to become violently ill. Soon they became strong enough to kill. Luckily, Fred and George also invented masks to protect themselves from these effects. Ron wouldn't let them use him as a test subject.

And Ginny— they say Ginny was with Harry at the end of it. She was found on the last day lying unconscious beside a huge black crater, but if she remembers what happened, she won't tell anyone who's been asking about it, and even if she'd tell him, he's not sure he wants to hear it.

Ron isn't like them. He wonders, sometimes, how all the anger and excitement drained out of him. He changed. He became cautious, even though he knows there's no time left for caution, and too much of it can be far worse than recklessness. And now, he's afraid. But that doesn't surprise him very much. He could be brave when he was with Harry, but Harry's gone, and even before that he was never very sure of himself. He panicked the first time he played in a real Quidditch game. He froze on his potion NEWTS and spilled a whole jar of ladybug wings into his half-brewed shrinking solution. He can't keep stay sure of himself under Imperius enough to know which commands are coming from in his own mind and which he should be fighting. He gets confused and frustrated and ends up doing things he never meant to.

He blinks and realizes that Luna's looking up at him from the bottom of the stairway, and he's been standing completely still on one of the middle steps for minutes without realizing it. He swallows hard and mutters a quick apology. They don't have much time left to find what they need, and he's already staring to fail. This is to be expected. really— Ron Weasley is given a tiny bit of responsibility, and he cracks under the pressure, just as well that the whole thing is impossible, and his partner is insane. It wouldn't do to have anyone valuable wasting their time on something like this— hopeless and dangerous. And he isn't even important enough to be mentioned in the recounting of his best friend's life.

There is a chunk of lead in the cauldron and the severed head of a raven on the table behind you. The candles you've lit to see by are made of fat from the kitchens, and the air is beginning to smell of sulfur. You shiver, and it could be from the cold or from fear or from the fact that it's been days since you last had food or clean water, but you wonder if it might be something else.

Putrefaction—Flamel referred to it as 'the separating,' and that's how you pictured it when you were younger, like a potion made in reverse by a skilled master, able to extract every ingredient and bring them back to their original forms, but that's not what it is at all. It's a breakdown— a decay— an ugly, fetid descent from form to matter to nothingness. If it could be put into the words of a curse, it would be unforgivable.

Despite what Creevey wrote, the war didn't end with Potter's death. The Dark Lord died too that day, and both sides chalked it up to equal losses and kept going, each mad with grief, each strengthened by their need for vengeance. But you didn't keep going after that. You never made a good soldier, anyway, and with what you were fighting for gone and what you were fighting against gone, you didn't see the purpose of it anymore— or maybe you just saw a different purpose.

The lead seems to be melting, boiling with huge, black bubbles sliding along its surface, and dense smoke rising from the depths of the cauldron. It won't be long now. You add a handful of dirt dug from a fresh grave, three nuts from a hazel tree, and a drop of your own blood. You read an incantation in an old language filled with thick, unpleasant vowel sounds, all the while fighting your tongue to keep from stuttering. Then you sprinkle in a few necessary herbs— all stolen from the disused storeroom, because you haven't any money left, except for the ten galleons in your pocket, and those wouldn't have been enough to by a single vial. You tell yourself money won't be a problem if what you're attempting works, and you tell yourself it will work. When you have the stone you'll be able to pluck gold from the air, but there are steps to go through before that, and the first will be the hardest.

For a few uncomfortable seconds, you begin to wonder what your year-mates would think seeing you here, a deserter and a failure, cowering away in your filthy robes. You imagine Parkinson's disgust, Goyle's confusion, Crabbe's clumsy empathy. You think of Weasley's idiotic smugness and Granger's self satisfied pity, and you think of Potter, because, no matter how you try, you can't not think of Potter and what he would do and what he would say and how he probably wouldn't be at all surprised to find you like this.

You hate him. You hate him so much that it burns and freezes and ties your insides in knots. You hate him in a vicious, violent way that makes you wish he were still alive so you could gut him using nothing more than your hands. You hate him in a nervous, jumpy way that has you glancing in shadows and dark corners with curses caught in your throat to use in case he happens to be there, despite the fact that he's dead. And once, you hated him in a calm, easy way as careless as your own breathing and so much a part of you that you were always able go on normally as if it wasn't there at all. And then you couldn't, because he wasn't, and you don't think anything can be the same after that.

You hate him more than you have ever hated or loved or wanted or didn't want anything in your life, and he died before you could face him on your terms, before you could be granted a single victory against him, and for that, you hate him even more, so much that you would willingly destroy yourself for just a chance to beat him.

And before the world goes dark, a tiny voice in your head whispers, _'What have I done?'_

_Harry Potter was built to fly and to seek, that much was obvious from the first time he stepped onto a broom. He was able to think fast without doubting himself and take chances that always worked out to his advantage. He was light and agile without being awkward or gangling. His extraordinary talents earned him a spot on the Gryffindor team his first year, and he had none of the nervousness typical of a beginning player, only speed and reach and sight like no one had before him and no one is likely to have since. When he was playing at his best, none could beat him, and there was not a game that ended without the golden snitch lying still in his palm._

Gold is the most powerful conductor of magic in the world, that's why the best cauldrons and scales have always been golden. Once, long ago, gold wands were made for the heads of the wealthiest families, but they were too powerful, too wild to be controlled, and they almost always ended up killing their masters. The Ministry claims that all of them have been disposed of over three hundred years ago, but Ron knows better than to trust the Ministry. So does Luna.

He hears Parkinson's words from earlier that week echoing in his head. _"A Weasley? Looking for gold? Do you think he'll recognize any if he sees it?"_

"_Ron is all we can spare,"_ Hermione had said in that I-know-everything voice of hers. "_And of course he knows what gold looks like."_ Then she gave him a questioning glance as if to ask him whether he really did know, and Parkinson caught it and laughed. He didn't care what that stupid cow thought. One of his best friends was dead, and the other had just called him expendable. That's what hurt. Besides, he knew recognition would never be the problem. Not even Hermione can recognize something that isn't there.

"If I had gold where would I keep it?" he mutters to himself, and despite the fact that he wasn't talking to her, Luna pokes her head around the adjacent doorway to look at him.

"I'd hang it from the ceiling," she says. "People don't look above them often enough. Everyone thinks gold should be buried, or kept in caves guarded by dragons—"

He closes his eyes and tries to tune her out. "In the bank . . ."

"Blibbering humdingers would never hoard like that. They're very generous—"

"Gringotts," he mutters. But Gringotts is closed and has been for over a year. Whatever gold the Death Eaters didn't smuggle away is buried hundreds of feet below the ground in the collapsed tunnels.

"Well, they can be greedy when it comes to swazzle berries, but that's only in the summer to keep them from getting too hot—"

"Goblins," he says, still thinking out loud.

"Oh no," Luna says with a sad sort of smile. "Fudge the butcher drove the last of the goblins out months before the war started. Why else do you think there haven't been any fighting alongside us?"

Ron stares at the ground, where he catches something shining out the corner of his eye. "Because they're too smart to get involved in this mess," he says, and then realizes that what he's looking at is just a piece of glass from a broken window.

"You don't really believe that, do you?"

"No." he lies.

"You're upset," Luna says quietly, and her voice echoes against the stone walls. "You're upset about Harry's book."

"No, I'm not," Ron lies again. Only she would call it Harry's book. It's not his. He wouldn't have approved of it. Ron's sure of that. And it certainly doesn't belong to him. Nothing does. He's dead. The truth of why he's upset is more complicated than just that, though Ron wouldn't expect many people to give him so much credit or consider him anything other than simple. There are things Harry Potter still owns, many of them he never even knew belonged to him, but it's too late to change that now. Ron is upset about the book— Creevey's book, and he's more upset that he cares so much about the stupid thing when his best friend just died. He would never have expected to turn out so bloody selfish, but he supposes Hermione was right about that too. Then again, there were whole chapters dedicated to her.

"Well you should be upset, Ronald," Luna says, sounding more definite than someone who wears radishes on their ears has any right to. "You're allowed to be sad that he's dead, but that'll sort itself out soon enough. The book— that was lies. Creevey tried to erase you from his life, and you should be mad about it. It's hard enough to know what to believe these days. Harry deserves better than something that isn't even true."

"Yeah, okay," Ron says dispassionately.

"Well, he does, and so do you. We should do something about it— I know. We should write the true story in the Quibbler."

When he rolls his eyes, Ron catches light reflecting where he hadn't expected there to be any and tips his head back fully to see two rows of gold chandeliers that run the length of the hallway hanging at least twenty feet above his head. "Lucky guess," he mumbles, "But I doubt they're real."

"No," she says quietly. "They're not. I've already checked."

_And from a hat that was nothing more than tatters, the Boy-Who-Lived pulled the sword that only he could pull— the one weapon in the world strong enough to cut down the evil serpent— a glimmering, golden blade inlaid with rubies and diamonds. And as if an unseen sun rose from those cold recesses of the dungeon chamber, the dark stone halls filled with an incredible light, and the phantom form of Slytherin's heir cowered from it, for he could not look upon its glory. He could not stand to see the boy whose destiny was to destroy him._

They're working their way down from the top floors. Even if that hadn't been the plan originally, it is the pattern they fell into, and Ron feels better to have some design to it. This way it won't be so much his fault when everything goes pear-shaped. There was a time when he was good with strategies, maybe even brilliant, but things were different then. A good leader takes risks when the odds are in their favor and knows when sacrifices must be made, but Harry was the leader, and he's dead, and Ron never felt he had any place in the big decisions. It doesn't matter now. He's too busy desperately clutching what little he still has to look at the big picture. There's nothing he would take a chance on sacrificing. Poor men should know better than to gamble, and Ron knows a lot about being poor. He knows there's nothing left he can afford to lose.

He follows Luna into the great hall, which is set up as it would be for a welcoming feast, except that the plates and saucers are white. They were only ever spelled to look golden. The ceiling charm has faded too. Instead of a night sky, the only thing above them is cracked stone and crumbling mortar.

He walks past the high table, casually looking it over. He pulls out each of the chairs and, finding nothing, moves on to the stool in the center of the floor with the sorting hat placed on its seat. "Have any advice for us, do you?" he asks, hardly raising his voice above a whisper. "Not so smart now without those spells that made you talk. Even then you weren't much use. You said I was another Weasley, but I'm not like the rest of them.

You said I was brave, and I was just a stupid kid, who didn't think bad things could ever happen to me, but I was wrong, and so were you. You should have known better. You're a thousand years old, and you bloody well knew what was happening, but the only warnings you gave were stupid songs. You should have screamed! You should have really told us! We would've listened!" Ron stops and hesitates for a second, wondering if what he's said is really true. "I would've listened," he whispers. It is perhaps the biggest lie he's ever told. The truth is he would have laughed. He would have asked why anyone would believe an ancient piece of cloth, and Hermione would have scolded him until he shut up. But he's not about to admit that now. He looks over at the wall, because he can't even manage to look a hat in the face. "What am I supposed to do now, eh?"

"There's plenty we can still do," says a voice, but it's Luna's, and she's on the other side of the room standing on the Gryffindor table inspecting the frayed banner and not really paying any attention to him. In her world, getting into arguments with hats is probably perfectly normal.

Grabbing the sorting hat, as if to strangle it, his hand meets something hard and pointed and cool through the fabric. He brings it up to his face and prods a bit further. "Ouch!" he shouts, pulling his hand back and staring in shock at his finger, which drips blood from a wide laceration. And his eyes widen further when a sword falls from the hat to the floor, clanging sharply against the stones. In his head, his mother's voice tells him it's dangerous for a sword to be stored in a hat, especially one that's placed on the heads of children so often. He sighs and wipes his finger against the leg of his trousers, and he can't help but think that after crawling through dusty corridors all day, this could only have made it dirtier.

The sword isn't gold, of course it's not. Gold is a powerful metal magically, but physically it's soft, certainly too soft to behead muggles or cut through basilisk skin. It looks different than it had second year, smaller perhaps, duller and definitely more tarnished. He stares down at his reflection in the blade and tries not to think about how he looks different too.

"We should move on to the kitchens," Luna says from somewhere behind him. "The house elves could be hiding something. They could have secretly been rich all this time and only dressed the way they do to make sure no one finds out . . . sort of like you are now."

He blinks, trying to process what he's just heard and decides Luna must be the only person in the world able to say that without the slightest hint of sarcasm. He shrugs again. It's too soon to think about it, really. Inheriting all of Harry's money will more of a burden than anything else. Ron will never consider it his. He'll never touch any of it for himself or his family. It's more of a guardianship, one that Hermione's too busy for, an obligation to give to the right charities and do all the good things Harry should have done like helping to rebuild the ministry and repair the burn ward at St. Mungo's, while not doing any of the stupid things he was actually planning like replacing the Dursley's geraniums with venomous tentacula or buying Hagrid a new pet dragon.

"You didn't find anything here, did you?" Luna asks.

"Nothing useful."

She tilts her head to the side and points to his hand. "What's that?"

"Oh, this is just the sorting hat," he says, holding it up for her to see, and then with his other hand, which just happens to be bleeding onto his shirt sleeve, he grabs the sword by the hilt and picks it up off the ground. "And this— this is the sword of Gryffindor."

"Oh, okay," she says, looking from one hand to the other. "That might actually be useful, the hat, I mean. It could be cold when we get down to the dungeons. The heating charms have probably gone out ages ago. Do you want it?"

"No," he ventures, still vaguely confused.

"That's good."

Her fingers brush his as she takes the hat from his hand, and she examines it for a while, as if to find the proper hole before taking the sword from his other hand and dropping it inside. Then she puts the hat on her head and begins to whistle.

The air is getting colder. The lead has melted, and now, as the last embers of the fire beneath flicker and die away, it forms a coagulated mass at the bottom of the cauldron. Someone is singing nearby, but you can't hear it. Your body is lying on the floor of the potions room, but your mind is somewhere else entirely.

_Inward focus, _Flamel wrote, _visions brought on by a_ _meditative state_— not this, not thistrance, not this sleep that so closely resembles death. You should have known better than to believe the writings of a Gryffindor. You're in what looks like another dungeon, dark and made of stone. You feel things, cold stagnant air and the grains of sand beneath your feet. This is more real than any dream, more real even than the days that passed since abandoning you post and starting to put your plans to work. And you can't wake up.

You're standing in front of a worn, black curtain that's blowing gently outward, yet you feel no wind. You can hear voices— strange and familiar voices coming from the other side, and you've grown so accustomed to silence these last few days that you can't seem to pluck any words, any meaning out of the ocean of sound. You hear your mother, though, and your master. You hear the dark, smooth voice that's unmistakably Snape's and another snapping back against it that could only be—

"Potter?" you whisper to no one but yourself, "Potter."

There's a rustling, a jumble of quickly spoken words and unseen motions, and then there's a name, "Malfoy," your name called out from behind the curtain— the veil— you start to think of it as that, because it's not really a curtain at all. Curtains block light, and there's no light here, just darkness pouring out from behind that thin piece of cloth, more darkness than you thought could exist in the world, the kind of darkness that swallows you whole and makes you forget about things like sunlight and clear water.

"Potter," you whisper again, taking a step forward as part of the veil is pulled aside, and you see an all too familiar figure standing there as casually as he would in any doorway. It doesn't surprise so much that you can see him when everything else is just vague forms and shadows, after all, no darkness could ever touch Potter, and you would hate him more for that if it were possible to hate him more than you already do.

"Malfoy," he says, pushing his glasses up his nose. "You're here."

You take another step forward and blink. "Potter?"

"I wouldn't come any closer if I were you," he says with a sharp smile.

"What? Why?"

Potter shrugs, but his smile remains. "Maybe," he says, "I should just let you try it and you find out."

You instinctively take a few steps back. "Where am I?"

"I'll give you a hint," he says, looking back into the darkness behind him. "You're not in the department of mysteries." He laughs to himself, but it sounds more like a cough. "Well, in a sense you are."

You don't understand what he's saying, even if you can make out his words. You think of what you've read of the secret places of the word and the things that hide in the dark and the times Flamel wrote of, the fractions of moments when all of life's questions can be answered. Then Potter turns back to you, and you give an indignant sneer. "Were you always this thick?"

He rolls his eyes and cocks his head to the side. "Were you always this dead?"

"What!"

"Oh," he whispers, and you barley hear it over the screaming of your own thoughts. "Oh, that's great. You really haven't figured it out yet. I thought you were just being difficult. You're dead, Malfoy, or very close to it."

You try to say something— anything. You try to shout as loud as you can manage so someone who's not dead will hear you. "No! No, Potter! I'm not— I . . ." But doubt creeps in, as it has so many times before, and realizing you don't have vocal cords makes it nearly impossible to speak. Your mouth opens and closes, but you can't seem to make any sound, and you stomp you foot hard on the floor, but no noise comes from it. You're floundering. Maybe you're even starting to disappear, because you know that you— the real you is still in the potions room at Hogwarts.

"I'll admit you're just about the last person I expected to see here," Potter says, raking a hand through his still messy hair. "I figured a ferret like you would be hiding in a hole in the ground until it was safe to come out. Did you judge wrong, Malfoy?"

You close your eyes, half-believing that when you open them again Potter will be gone, but you only end up smelling something waxy and unpleasant. You concentrate and start to feel hard ground against your back and distant singing in your ears. Potter's still there when you open your eyes, and you can't help but grin at him, because for however long it has yet to last, your life hasn't ended. You're not dead. And he was wrong to say you were. "I'll have you know, Potter," you say, brushing some imagined dust from your robes, "that I am in the process of summoning a philosopher's stone. When I find my way out of this . . . place, I'll have nearly done it. I'll have the elixir of life. So get a good look now, because when I'm through here, you'll never see me again."

You were hoping for Potter to be upset by this, by being proven wrong, and because your hopes are so rarely met, you were at least expecting for him to get a little annoyed, but the look he gives you is almost pitying. "I was warned about your type," he says. "Hundreds come here every year claiming the same thing that you are now. Some of them are even muggles. Do you know how many make it back?" You roll your eyes, and when Potter speaks next, his voice is harsher than it had been, harsher than you can remember it ever being. "In the last thousand years, how many made it back for good? Do you know? Do you know how many are alive now?"

"One," you say, glad that you know the answer, "only one. Nicholas Flamel. I've seen his journal. Soon it will be two."

"None, Malfoy," Potter rasps, staring right through you. "Flamel is dead, just like you are . . . or will be soon enough."

"Shove off," you say, because you don't know whether Potter's right or not, but he probably is, because he usually is. And it would be just your luck to die here with him watching and talking about how he knew from the start that you would come to a bad end.

"Why on earth did you try it?" he asks, adjusting his glasses again, as if they really matter here. "You were never even that good at difficult magic. You couldn't even get an OWL in charms."

"I'll get it," you say, not really sure who you're trying to convince. "I'll get it."

"This isn't a Quidditch game," he snorts, and you think it's just like him to bring up charms and Quidditch and else he always beat you at. "You'll find you can't cheat so easily here. You can't cheat at all."

"I'll get it, Potter," you say again through gritted teeth, because a part of you hasn't given up yet. And you know he's looking at you like you're the most pathetic thing he could possibly imagine, but you're willing to give everything you have to wipe that look from his face.

"How?"

"What?" You close your eyes for just a second and try to smell the potions room and feel the stones against your back, but you can't. The world is slipping away from you, and the darkness is creeping out across the floor. You feel dizzy and start to shiver upon realizing that it's not cold anymore, and the floor seems too smooth like ice or polished glass, and you nearly slip when you try to move a few more steps back from Potter and the veil.

"How will you get it?" he asks slowly. "If you've read Flamel's journal, you know what you have to find to get back."

"Find!" you shout incredulously before remembering that there is something you have to find, something from a book that might make more sense here than it had before, if only you could remember. And you keep shouting, hoping to spark that memory or at least get Potter properly mad. "Find! Find, Potter! There's nothing here except the floor and empty walls and— and you! Nothing!" You don't mention the veil or the darkness stretching infinitely behind it, and Potter notices this and raises his eyebrows.

You close your eyes so you don't have to look at him anymore, and you try to remember the real details of your life before, not just the vague disappointments, but instead you think about hats and singing and the feel of the sky on spring days, when you're flying and the taste of butterbeer in winter, shared with friends you never really had. You think of swimming in a clean lake and pulling gnomes up from a garden and being completely happy. A part of your mind screams that these aren't your memories, but the rest is foggy and distant.

You remember something you once read about lines drawn between opposites— life and death, intense heat and impenetrable cold, love and whatever love's opposite really is, probably indifference or disdain or the exact way Potter's currently looking at you. And you remember something else you read, a bundle of half-lies and complete truths woven so tightly you couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. You don't know what to believe anymore.

But even if your mind is foggy and your perception clouded, there are some things that were kept other places. When you're truly sure of something, you can feel it all the way down to your bones, and you really do hate Potter with every part of yourself, and there is something else, something you know by heart.


	2. Albedo

**How We Shine**

**Part Two: Albedo**

_It is in men as in soils where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not._

-Jonathan Swift

_Rare are the people who believe the truth even when the truth isn't obvious, rarer still are the intelligent ones. The truth was that Harry hadn't put his name in the goblet of fire. His age wouldn't have allowed him, and he knew far better than to risk himself for only a pittance and a silly title. Still, there were those who doubted him, the bumbling fools jealous of his name and his talent. He never let their taunts or their envy dissuade him. The youngest of four by at least three years, and still he became the champion of champions, the first to enter the maze and the only to complete it. He first saw death then, in that graveyard he was carried to by the portkey, and he first saw the Dark Lord returned. The gathered crowd gasped at the sight of him bringing back the lifeless body of the Hufflepuff champion, and many began to murmur to themselves, false speculations about what really happened. Harry Potter would tell the truth again, and again, he would be doubted and questioned and mocked, but just as before, he knew his courage and Hermione's cleverness would see him through. _

Though Luna was wrong about the house elves hiding gold in the kitchens, she was certainly right about it being cold in the dungeons, not only cold but dark too— dark in a way that makes the cold feel twice as sharp and silent, save for her whispered singing and the echoes of his footsteps.

"_Long ago, yes long, long ago 'bout a thousand years or more, _

_There was a school, yes a lovely, lovely school built by the founders four." _

For a while now, Ron's been suspecting that Luna really is smart, not like normally smart people, who read their school books and study three hours for every one they spend in class, not like Hermione, not even like ordinary people given to brief flashes of brilliance, but like Dumbledore was when he was alive, mad and bright and knowing, a way Ron admired once when he was more alive then he is now.

"_First was Ravenclaw, then Hufflepuff, Slytherin and Gryff-in-dor." _

She walks through the world like it's just a dream and nothing can really hurt her, and she smiles like she understands all of its secret rules. It's uncomfortable, really, and it puts him off balance, but he begins to think that maybe he'd rather have her here than Hermione. Maybe, she was given this job for a reason. Maybe, he was too.

"_Though I may be quite little, you shouldn't judge me by my size, _

_And I may seem rather gritty, but I'm actually quite wise"_

This is the last part of the castle to check. They'll nothing left after the dungeons. They agreed that the spell would be done tonight, when the moon is at its fullest. And they know Hogwarts won't last another month in this state. The school is the center, not the ministry in London or the order's headquarters at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. If they let Hogwarts fall then all of Wizarding England will soon follow.

"_For I took it as my duty to see that the school goes on,_

_And I may not be a beauty, but you should listen to me, Ron—ald!"_

Luna's song ends when they come to the potion's laboratory. Ron forces open the door, which has been barricaded from the inside by a pile of desks, and Luna pulls the sorting hat off and uses it to cover her nose, coughing. "It smells worse than a nest of nargles down here."

"We'll there's the reason!" Ron says, catching sight of the hunched over figure of Malfoy in the front of the room.

"Quiet," she whispers, climbing over the desks, and Ron follows as she moves a bit closer to examine Malfoy. "You'll wake him by being too loud."

"So?" Ron asks, stepping in front of her and poking Malfoy's side with his foot. "Hey! Hey, Ferret! It's probably not a good idea to be down here right now!" Ron pokes him again and is rewarded by a soft jingling sound. He looks up at Luna with a slight smile, and then pulls ten galleons from the pocket of Malfoy's robe. "Hey, he actually came in handy."

Luna nods. "I knew we'd find something if we kept looking."

"Yeah, I guess." He turns back to Malfoy and kicks him hard in the stomach. There's no jingling this time, just a squashy noise and the thud of Malfoy's head falling back against the stone floor. "Wake up!" Ron shouts, but Malfoy doesn't wake up. He just flops about like a limp rag, and it's a few seconds before everything catches up with Ron, and he drops the galleons and stumbles backwards, feeling sick.

Luna regards him curiously for a moment. Then she kneels down beside Malfoy, and taps him on the chest a few times with her fist. "Get up," she tells him matter-of-factly. "You'll suffocate if you don't get up."

"Luna, he's . . . I don't think he's going to get up."

"Oh," she says. It's more of a breath than a word— a shape she makes with her mouth before straightening herself and covering Malfoy's face with the sorting hat and using her hands to smooth down his robes. It's odd, and it's tender, and it's entirely wrong, and Ron has to look away when she starts talking to Malfoy in that even voice of hers, as if he's really listening, as if he can really hear.

In his peripheral vision, he catches sight something unpleasantly familiar, and it makes him take the kind of deep breath a person takes when they're about to do something very, very stupid. "Well," he says, picking Creevey's book up off the floor, "now we know what killed him. He probably got sick to death reading this." It's a bad joke, and it's horribly inappropriate, and Ron knows it, but he's beginning to tear up over bloody, stinking Malfoy when he hadn't even managed to for Harry. And he starts thinking that Malfoy was probably as crap at being an evil minion as he is at fixing Hogwarts. And they're all just stupid kids, anyway, but instead of casting jumping jinxes or melting cauldrons, they end up getting butchered by Dark Lords, or dying alone in stinking dungeons, or failing everyone they've ever cared about.

"Ronald—"

He keeps going without looking at her, because he knows he won't be able to listen to what she has to say, and he doesn't think he'd be able to stop talking if he tried. "Let's see how long he got before it did him in," he says, skimming the page it was opened to and fighting to keep his voice from breaking. "Well there it is. I'll just have to tell Hermione I was wrong. See, I am mentioned here. Apparently, I'm the poorest of people, how about that! And it even says that Harry graciously stayed at my humble dwelling. I didn't even know I had a humble dwelling!"

"Ron."

"Oh, and look here, will you! Here it says I'm a bumbling fool for doubting Harry! Only, it doesn't bother to say my name! I wasn't the only one, though." He turns back to Malfoy, and his stomach lurches slightly. "I guess you fit into that category too."

"You'll see him again."

"I don't want to see him again! I hate him!" Ron realizes a bit too late that she's probably talking about Harry and not Malfoy, but that doesn't matter now, because his answer would have been just the same. "And if you haven't noticed," he says throwing the book across the room and watching it land in a smoking cauldron, "I really, really hate that bloody thing!"

"It's wrong about what's important," Luna half-whispers. "And it doesn't matter what it says, anyway. Colin was never very smart about some things."

"He's bloody delusional— that's what he is!" Ron wonders if screaming loud enough will drown out the voice in his head that tells him Creevey was right and he really isn't even worth a footnote.

"No one will believe it."

Ron glances at Malfoy again, just in case he might have woken up and started moving, but of course he hasn't, and Ron quickly shifts his eyes back towards the floor. "No, Luna, you won't believe it, and that doesn't mean anything, because you don't believe what's right in front of your face, and the things you do believe aren't real. But people— regular people do believe things. They believed Lockhart, and Skeeter, and Fudge, and they'll believe Creevey too. And you'll be able to go on just fine when they do, because what people believe doesn't bother you at all, but I can't do that, because it's about Harry, and he is— he was my friend."

Luna sighs and taps her foot and twirls a strand of hair around her wand. "You're a Gryffindor, and you're brave. You should trust yourself more than some book."

"No," he says "No, I'm not. I just used to think I was. Sometimes, I thought I'd die to save him. And sometimes, I thought if it happened this way— the way things are now, it would be because of me— because I messed up somehow, miscalculated something or barged in taking a stupid chance, but Harry took stupid chances too. He was just lucky and got away with most of them. I wasn't there when it happened, and that's almost a relief, because it's over, and I wasn't the one who let him down."

"You weren't there?"

"Ha," it's a bitter sound, not quite a laugh, but it's all he can manage. "Hermione thought it would be better if I stayed at Grimmauld Place. I never figured out how to throw off the Imperius like the rest of them did, and I never got the hang of Bill's Dementor resistance thing. And guess what? I was relieved about that too! So I'm not brave like you said! I'm a coward! I'm almost as bad as— as Malfoy!" He sighs, absently rubbing his still-bleeding finger against the front of his shirt, and he looks back at Malfoy, this time longer than before, probably longer than he ever had while Malfoy was alive, and the bloody annoying voice in his head whispers, '_Hey, Ferret, we're just the same_.'

"Ron," Luna says. "Ronald, we have to keep looking.

Ron wrenches his eyes away from Malfoy, but can't help turning back every few seconds to make sure that he really hasn't started moving. "Where, huh? What are we supposed to do about this?" He points to the galleons scattered across the floor, and he almost feels bad about taking them now, even though they were probably just stolen anyway. "This is all we have, and we've looked everywhere."

She smiles, but there's no mistaking it for happy. "Not everywhere."

_Perhaps because of his upbringing or perhaps because of the humble company he kept, Harry Potter never expected that there was anything truly spectacular about himself, though there had been indications of true brilliance that were clear to anyone who looked closely or even casually studied the way he hardly had to concentrate to perform the most difficult of spells. And those who didn't notice this needed only to recognize the way the great Albus Dumbledore regarded him. But Dumbledore's hold over the school was weakened that year by a ministry trying its hardest to disprove Harry and prevent news of the Dark Lord's return from spreading. Instead of becoming angry or bitter at the accusations made against him, Harry sought to spread not only the truth but also the hope of victory. And he began to teach others the spells that came so easily to him, never becoming angry or losing his temper, even when a malicious professor prevented him from playing Quidditch. So the Gryffindor team struggled through on what little talent it had left, and with him cheering them on, they won the Quidditch cup. But there were things lost that year too. Harry's godfather was tricked by the Dark Lord and killed by one of his servants. _

When Luna's upset— really upset— she gets normal. It takes Ron some time to figure this out in the way it takes him some time to figure most things out, but ever since seeing Malfoy in the dungeons she's stopped talking about the Quibbler and blibbering humdingers, and her eyes seem to have gotten just a bit less wide and just a bit more focused. Ron, on the other hand, finds himself spinning out in the opposite direction and is thankful that Hermione's not around to scold him about his temper. He can't even figure out what's made him so angry or why he's losing control now when what he needs most is to concentrate on not screwing up again.

Luna had dragged him out onto the grounds, and he followed, stumbling behind, not sure what to expect, what gold there was to find out in the weeds of the overgrown fields. But now, she just stands in the muddy sand by the lake looking lost.

"So?" he asks, but she doesn't answer. "SO?"

"What is it, Ronald?" she says, sounding perfectly fine and entirely unlike herself. "What do you want?"

"We have to keep looking," he says. "We can't just give up."

"Well . . ." she starts and then pauses to calmly brush some dust from the hem of her robe. "Well, you've been making it perfectly clear from the beginning that you already have."

"I haven't!" Ron shouts, and he doesn't know what made him say it, whether he's just trying to be difficult or he's actually started to believe they might have a chance. "I haven't quit anything."

"Fine, then don't."

They stand there in uncomfortable silence for a few seconds before he works himself up to asking again. "Well?"

She turns to him, face completely blank. "It's up to you now, isn't it?"

"Oh no," he stammers. "No, you can't do that. You can't put this all on me now that we know we don't have anything to work with. We can't just make gold. Maybe somebody can, but we can't. We can't get something from nothing."

"Then you'll have to find it, won't you?"

"You sound like Hermione now, I hope you know." Ron says with a scowl, and he's slightly pleased to see her offended by it. "You're also making even less sense now than you usually do. Where am I going to find gold out here?" He trails off when he can't think of anything to fill the silence, and she doesn't speak either. So they just stand there for a few more minutes, him in the grass and her in the sand, and it slowly dawns on him that however different they are, they're thinking the exact same thing, '_it's over.'_ But neither of them can say it. Neither can say anything, because he's too proud to admit defeat, and she's too open to tell him something that she doesn't believe herself.

He takes a few steps closer to the lake and looks out over the water, which is only half as deep as it once was and covered with the thick black sheen of oil. Luna speaks without looking at him. "The thestrals are watching us."

"Oh." He snaps his head around in the direction of the forest, but he can't see anything except for the trees and the lengthening shadows. The sun's barley visible over the western horizon. Soon it will be too dark. Soon it will be tomorrow. Soon it will be too late.

"They're right behind us," she says. "You should be able too look at them through the lake. It's dead, you see."

He squints and studies the surface for any reflections. He certainly doesn't doubt that it's dead— everything—all the fish and the mermaids even the squid. He feels kind of bad about that, even if the fool thing had saved Creevey's brother. "No, I can't. It's too dark. I can't see anything."

"You're not looking hard enough."

He lowers his head and squints at the water, trying to make out any shapes reflecting on its surface. "Okay, I'm looking, but I still don't see anything."

"Look harder," she says calmly. "You have to look harder."

"How!" he tries to shout, but as if the anger catches the word somewhere in his throat, it comes out rasped and quiet. "I can't look harder! There's nothing there!"

"You don't see things, Ronald," Luna says, starting to walk away. "There's so much right in front of you that you never even see. You can't even look at yourself properly or Harry."

"I can't look at Harry because he's dead," Ron mutters to himself, crossing his arms over his chest. But Luna keeps walking, and if she's heard him, she shows now sign of it. "Fine. Whatever," he says louder and takes a few steps toward the water. "I'm looking at the bloody lake again. Maybe I just can't see the thestrals because I've never seen anyone die. Did you ever think of that? Maybe I don't want to see them. Maybe the castle is about to fall down, and I don't care whether I can see a few stupid, ugly horses! I'm looking, though! I'm here, and I'm looking, and I can't see anything through all the black and the— the . . ."

Luna's footsteps stop, and he hears her suck air in through her teeth. "The what?"

"The rainbows," he says, twisting his neck so he can see her.

Her shoulders go rigid for a second. Then she turns to him with a very familiar, very strange look on her face. "Rainbows?"

He shrugs and points to where the fading light bends in all colors over the water. "They block out any real reflection or twist it so much . . . I can't see anything."

Luna skips a few steps towards the lake so that she's standing right next to him. "Maybe you can."

"What?" Ron asks, feeling horribly confused and wishing she would just make up her mind about whether he could see or not so he can go on seeing or not seeing just as he always has.

"Ronald, you've done it!" she shouts, peering into the lake and moving one hand through the air as if tracing some invisible curve.

He shrugs and uncrosses his arms. "I've done what?"

"Rainbows," she says, laughing, and Ron notices that her eyes have gone wide again.

"What are you talking about?"

"There's gold at the end of every rainbow!"

"Gold?" It takes Ron a few seconds for his mind to switch gears and catch up with her. "No, that's not— that's leprechaun gold. That won't work. It won't even last."

"That's okay," she says with a half smile.

"No, it's not okay. I don't think you understand. It won't last."

"Nothing does," she says, looking impossibly hopeful, "not forever. Things don't have to be permanent to be real."

You need to find something in nothing. You know that much. And it seemed so simple when it was all just words on parchment, but things usually do and you remember another book that was easier to disbelieve but harder to get out of your head— a book about Potter.

"You want to beat me," Potter says as if he's telling you something you don't already know, and then his voice becomes almost imperceptibly softer. "That's all you've ever wanted, isn't it?"

"No," you say. "This has nothing to do with you." But you can tell he doesn't believe you. And you try not to think of him and concentrate on the stone and what you'll be able to do when you have it.

"You only want it for yourself," he says. "You'll never get it that way."

"Shut up!" you shout, wondering how he's seeming to read your thoughts and why on earth he would claim to know anything about this. And, you think, it's typical Potter for him to be so ridiculously convinced that he's always right. And maybe he is. Maybe he was summoning philosopher's stones since first year. But you know he's that been wrong before. Unless he meant to get himself killed, he's been wrong at least once. "Shut up, Potter. You don't know anything."

"Fine," he says with a shrug. "Have it your own way." And for a few seconds, you expect him to leave, to retreat back into the darkness behind him, but he doesn't, and you don't know whether to be annoyed or relieved because of it, but you don't dwell on this long.

Pain blooms in the pit of your stomach, pain worse than anything you've ever felt before, and it spreads through your body so that even your ears and toes and fingernails ache. "Ow— ouch."

Potter rolls his eyes and you know this, somehow, even though your own eyes are shut tight. When you open them to look at him he seems smaller and blurred and less real than you remember, but his voice, the same voice he always had, echoes in your mind when he speaks. "What now, Malfoy?

"I . . . It— it . . ." You can't speak, and you want to shut your eyes again, but you know that if you open them again Potter might be gone, and that scares you more than you'll ever admit. So you force your eyes to stay open even though sight doesn't mater and soon fades to a black-grey haze. For a few seconds, there is only pain— pain stronger than your hate and more terrible than the darkness around you. And then you focus on Potter, and slowly, he seems to become more defined, sharper around the edges. "It hurts," you manage to croak out while doubling over. "It hurts."

"What?" Potter asks, and he sounds almost surprised.

"Everything," you say. "Everything hurts." And you don't know how it could hurt here when your body is so far away, but it does— everything does, and you don't really want to think about why.

"Oh." There's a look on Potter's face that, if you didn't know better, you might have mistaken for sympathy.

"It hurts!" you say again, louder this time and with as much hate as you can get behind it, but he only nods and gives you a strange stare that you refuse to acknowledge.

"Did you really think it wouldn't?" he asks, and you wonder if he was always this good at being vague or if he picked it up out of boredom shortly after dying, but you can't hold on to that thought long, because even thinking hurts too much.

"What?" you spit. "Some help you are, Potter."

His stare hardens, and you would have taken this as a victory if your skin didn't feel like it was burning and freezing at the same time. "You don't want my help," he says with a definite glare. "And I'm sure whatever I could do would only be a disappointment." He tilts his head back slightly and sighs. "I was crap in most of my classes, you know. By sixth year, I just stopped caring. I don't know if you noticed that. You weren't that great either, but I'm pretty sure you got better marks than me, or would have if Dumbledore hadn't suggested my special circumstances be considered," he says this looking very much like he wants to punch someone, and you try to take an awkward, shuffling step back, but end up toppling over onto your side.

If Potter notices that you've fallen, he doesn't show it. He just keeps talking— talking about himself and his tragic little life, which is over, of course. He's dead, and he's still complaining that he got better grades in school than he deserved. And his self-righteousness isn't so annoying, now— it can't be. It's funny and pathetic and completely ridiculous. You laugh, and it hurts, but you don't care. And you try to stand and manage it, somehow, despite feeling like your insides are melting.

Potter flashes you a quick grin and keeps talking. "I never learned Occlumency. Snape tried to teach me, but I never learned. I just couldn't get it, and you know what I did? I gave up. You wouldn't have given up, would you? You would have kept going even if it killed you. That's the way you've always been."

"I'm not stupid," you say, just in case Potter is capable of listening to a voice other than his own.

He gives a quick nod and looks at you from the corner of his eye. "And I was a disaster at chess. I couldn't even beat most first years. I would always take my queen out too early. I guess I just wanted to get the game over with, but that's no way to win, really. That's no way to do anything."

"What's your point," you ask, and you're surprised that your throat seems to hurt less than it did before.

He smirks. "I'm just trying to explain how little help I can be to you. I wasn't that great at Quidditch either. Nobody seems to remember how Cedric beat me in third year. Everyone blamed it on the Dementors, even me for a while. But it was wet and cold, and windy, and in the end, Cedric was better than me. When things got bad, he was better than me, most people were— Hermione, Ginny . . . Ron . . . definitely Ron, even if he never realized there's more to magic than throwing off Imperius or resisting Dementors."

You start shouting, "Of course . . ." And you trail off, unsure of where you're going or where you really are, and Potter's still smirking like he knows something you don't. Your arms are waving about, and you're breathing hard, and you're in more pain than you've ever before imagined, but all you want to do is wipe the smirk of his face. And then you realize why the smirk's there and what Potter knows. He knows you. He knows you far better then he should. That's why he's going on about himself. That's why you got up after falling, because if you didn't, you wouldn't be able to knock him over the head, which is exactly what you feel like doing now. You scowl at him. "I get it."

"Yeah," he says with a look that you can't quite place. "Yeah, I figured you would . . . And I got killed, Malfoy, incase you haven't noticed. I got killed." He stops to take a deep breath and when he speaks again his voice isn't so steady. "Feel better now?"

"It still hurts," you say, and it does hurt, and it's slowly starting to hurt worse than before. Your legs are getting weaker, and a part of you wants to sit down on the stone floor, but you're pretty sure you won't manage to stand up again if you do, and then you definitely won't be able to hit him, but you're not so sure you want to anymore. And this isn't how things were supposed to be.

Potter's voice is quiet and bitter. "I know it hurts," he says. "You think I don't know?"

"No you don't!" you snap, more out of habit than anything else and because concentrating on Potter made the pain almost go away before, but you don't think that's the kind of thing that can ever happen more than once. Whatever magic was there is lost now.

"Yes I do," he says, and he opens his mouth like he's going to say something more, but you don't let him.

"No— no, Potter!" you shout before he can get any words out. And it doesn't matter whether Potter believes you. It doesn't matter how many times Potter's been put under Cruciatus and suffered more than any normal person could with having their mind turn to mush or if didn't suffer at all, because he was so far above normal that little unforgivable curses couldn't touch him— because that first curse certainly didn't, and he's the boy who lived. But he doesn't live now. And it's funny, really, because it was always in past tense— you just never noticed. "I don't think you understand!" you shout, and he gives you as strange look. "I don't think you understand at all!"

"Understand what?"

"It—it feels like I'm dying here," you say. It's not a pleasant thought, but it's true. You can almost taste it.

Potter's eyes narrow, and keeps staring like he's not quite sure what to make of you, and you glare back at him, but he just swallows and opens his mouth a few times, teetering somewhere between anger and pity. When he does manage to speak, his voice is soft and strained. "Malfoy, you are."

There's a sinking feeling in your stomach and something seems to be balled up in your throat. You close your eyes so you don't have to look at him. "No— no, I'm . . ."

"If it makes you feel any better, I really wanted you to get it, the philosopher's stone, I mean." You open your eyes, and Potter smiles, looking like his usual smug self. "An eternity without you— I wouldn't have minded that at all." He shrugs and the smile falls away. "But I suspect I'll be able to deal with this as well."

"Deal with what?" You ask, trying to sneer, but finding your lips unable to do anything but tremble.

"With you," he says. "You're going to make me absolutely miserable, aren't you?" He waves an arm, motioning for you to come closer.

"What?" you ask, even though you know just what he's talking and when the realization comes crashing down, it doesn't hurt nearly as much as you thought it would. And maybe that's just because you're hurting so much everywhere else that it dwarfs the pain you feel upon learning you're going to die, but maybe it's not. Maybe it's because Potter's there complaining about how irritating you're going to be, and you don't even care that he's about to be right one last time, because he was wrong enough times before. You both were. "Don't tell me I ever got to you, Potter. Me? Annoy the boy who lived, the great hero of the age?"

"You were absolutely maddening," he says with a smile that doesn't look so smug anymore. "It's good to see you haven't changed."

"Really?" you ask stumbling a few steps forward, and you don't even care that he's laughing at you.

"Well, come on then," he says nodding. "It'll stop hurting once you get through." And he holds out his hand for you to take. "Come on, Malfoy. I can't go any farther." And you reach for it. You reach for it even if it means dying.

They say your life passes before your eyes at times like this, but what you see isn't your life at all. It's something much bigger, something that your life was just a part of— a small, barley significant part. You see yourself flying over still water and then land, burning forests and desolate, abandoned farms and deserts, constantly expanding until they mix with the darker sand of another shore. And then everything's dark. The sky is so black that you can't see your hands in front of your face, and it's cold. You'd forgotten about the cold or you didn't feel it, somehow. You can feel it now, and it's not long before it turns your whole body numb, and the pain you felt before slowly melts away.

You don't know how long it is you stay there, feeling nothing and seeing nothing and hearing nothing but your own shallow breathing. You don't know if time is real here or if it ever was. You stare out into the emptiness and decide that you quite liked being alive while it lasted. It was frustrating and embarrassing and completely unfair, but you liked it all the same. And you know you won't be remembered for any great deeds or even petty evils. And trying fudge your way through a dangerous alchemical process probably wasn't a very good idea, even though it seemed like it at the time. But you laugh, and you think of the stupid look on Potter's face when he told you, you were _absolutely maddening_. And you feel a strange weight in your hand as a warmth spreads up through you arms and quickly surrounds you.

There is consciousness, suddenly— rapid flashes of color and light that you can't properly make out, but time slows and the nothingness around you becomes so full with everything that your eyes strain to look at it. You see the sky opening up before you and the stars spinning and blinking in and out. You see the world and all that's in it, and you fight to hold yourself there in that moment that Flamel described when all questions are answered, but it's too much, and moments were never meant to last long.

Your eyes are burning and you legs are weak and your head feels like it's going to explode. So you relax and close your eyes let it flow past you and you understand all of it, all of the questions you could never find the words to ask. When you're not standing in the center anymore, you can see far more than you had, and everything makes sense. Then you open your eyes, and Potter's looking at you in complete shock, and nothing makes sense anymore.

Your legs wobble underneath you, and your bones feel like they've been replaced with jelly. You sway back and forth for a bit, enjoying the feel of solid ground beneath your feet, and against your will, you let out a rather pathetic sounding whimper.

"You've done it," Potter whispers, and after being surrounded by the nothingness, his whisper sounds like a scream.

"What?" you ask, feeling dizzy and clumsy and wondering if you're properly dead now so you can finally lay down and get some rest.

"You've done it, Malfoy."

You try to focus long enough to glare at him, hoping it will make him stop staring, but it doesn't, and you never really expected it to. "What? Done what?"

He tilts his head downward slightly, and you follow the invisible line of his gaze until you find where his eyes are set. Sitting in the hand you were about to give to him is a deep red stone. "That."

"Oh," you breathe. "Oh." You want to say something more, but you can't seem to manage it. You want to jump up and down shouting, '_Oh!_ _Ha! _Y_ou were wrong about me! You were wrong, you idiot! See how wrong you were_!' But you don't. Your legs are still too shaky, and your throat's too sore, and you're still confused about what just happened and what's happening now and what will happen next. You don't say anything. You look up at Potter he's still looking at you.

"Well . . ."

"Uh . . ."

"So . . ."

You force yourself to focus on the stone, and you feel your strength and surety returning. "Guess I won't be joining you after all, Potter," you say, feeling more like yourself than you have in a very long time. "Don't look so disappointed."

Potter gives an indignant snort. "You think I'll be disappointed never to see your git face again? Don't count on it."

"I won't," you say, and you're not sure what you mean by it, except that for a second you would have followed him into the darkness, and that doesn't scare you as much as it should.

"You're supposed to go back now, you know," Potter says with another snort, and you wonder just how long you've been standing there lost in thought. "If you're waiting for me to kiss you goodbye, you're going to be waiting a long time."

You stick out your tongue and then think better of it and cover your mouth with your hand, so Potter doesn't get any ideas. "Don't be disgusting."

"No," he says rubbing the back of his neck. "I'll leave that to you, Malfoy. Try not to contaminate everything with your general sliminess."

"See you later, Potter," you say, starting to feel cool stones against your back and smell sulfur in the air.

"No," Potter says, without any hint of feeling in his voice. "No, you won't."

You could say something, and a part of you wants to try, but you're already slipping back into the real world and fighting against it and trying to hold yourself there with Potter would make you look absolutely ridiculous. So you sigh and shrug and give a little half-hearted wave. And you wake up.


	3. Rubedo

**How** **We Shine**

**Part Three: Rubedo**

_Love is the only gold. _

-Alfred Lord Tennyson

_Harry Potter came into his sixth year of school knowing that he was the only one alive with the ability to destroy the Dark Lord and knowing that the fate of the world would soon depend on that ability. A lesser person would have been crushed beneath such pressure, but not Harry— not the boy who lived. He was aware of the expectations placed upon him, and he remained undaunted. Hermione reassured him, sometimes, though he showed no need of reassurance. She made sure he kept doing the things of a normal student, though he was anything but normal. He still seemed to be spending a superhuman amount of effort on his studies, the ones assigned to him by professor and the ones he chose for himself that he knew would be far more useful to prepare for his particular future. He quickly mastered the difficult art of Occlumency and easily understood the most advanced theories of transfiguration. When he had a few free moments he would spend them in the Gryffindor common room, playing games with his friends— exploding snap or gobstones or chess, at which his skill could not be matched._

Ron doesn't know the charm Luna uses to make a rainbow shoot up from her wand, but that's just as well, really, because she probably came up with it on the spot. The rainbow is real, not the way he imagined it like a perfect arch plucked from some brightly colored child's painting. It's barely visible against the darkening sky, and like all real rainbows, there is gold at the end of it, not nuggets or bars of gold and certainly not any coins kept in a pot, but dust— shining gold dust that falls from the sky as soft as snow and lays gently over dying grass. Ron can only admire it for a few seconds before the voice in his head tells him he'd better start making himself useful. So he starts to gather it into a bucket he finds in an old shed beside the ruins of Hagrid's hut.

He's not thinking now, the way he has been all day, just moving his wand and saying he same word over and over again. "Accio. Accio. Accio." There's no time to wonder and worry over what will happen later, only to do what needs doing, and it's not that unpleasant, really. He doesn't feel like himself, not like Ron Weasley, the forgotten best friend to a dead hero, not like someone who still can't control his thoughts enough to block Dementors of fight Imperius, or whose only bravery depends on someone else. For a few short moments, all that exists to him is the ground and the sky and the flurries of gold filling the air, and somewhere inside him, those moments last forever.

"Ron."

Again, Ron lets some hope creep into his thoughts. Maybe he and Luna really can do this. Maybe someday, he'll be mentioned alongside his brothers or even Harry, and maybe someday, he won't care so much about what people think and whether they believe what they read. Because some people are born to do great things, and some people aren't, but sometimes, it's the people who nobody thinks are anything special that do the most— that do the greatest things of all. They can get away with it, because no one ever expects them. They're not trapped in the spotlight or actively avoiding it. This is strategy. This is what he's best at, or once was.

"Ronald."

There's a war still being fought by the smartest and strongest, and far away in a place that both sides have given up for lost, two people who no one bothers to think of are trying to turn the tide of it by doing what no army ever could. Ron smiles. He knows that this is the way it has to be. The opponent is busy planning for the obvious moves from the more powerful pieces, and the pawn's about to cross the board. Ron was good at chess, certainly better than Harry, no matter what Creevey said, and he still has a few moves left.

"You've got it all."

"Huh?"

Luna points to the bucket in his hand and then to the grass at his feet, which is now bare of all but the faintest sparkle. "There's not enough," she says.

"What?" Ron asks, and his voice is so rough he can barely recognize it as his own. "No. This can work. Do the spell again."

"It's too hard to hold, and it's too hard for you to keep Accioing. We'll be too tired to make the repairs." She takes the bucket and puts it on the ground then takes the galleons from his pocket and drops them in. "There's still not enough."

Ron shakes his head. "No," he says. "No, there has to be."

Luna takes a handful of dust and watches it fall through her fingers back into the bucket, and Ron notices that there's less that falls than what she originally held. "We found what we could. We found what wasn't even there, and we probably did better than they ever expected, but there's still as much as we need."

She's right. They were supposed to find enough so that there would be at least a galleon sized piece in every room. It took a hundred years and more than a hundred people to build Hogwarts. It took even more than that to weave in all the magic needed to keep it standing, and wizards were more powerful then. They have only a few hours and the galleons they stole from Malfoy's pocket and a rusty bucket of gold dust that's already starting to fade from existence.

The original plan needed the gold to strengthen a simple repairing spell, so that, even said only once it would have the effect of being performed hundreds of times and with more force behind it than any one person had in them. It could have worked, Ron thinks again. It could have really worked. If there had been enough gold or enough time, they could have saved Hogwarts. But there's no way for it to work now— unless.

"I have an idea," Ron says, without thinking, and he instantly hopes Luna hasn't heard him, but she does and gives him an expectant look. He hesitates to say it, but only for a moment. "Instead of putting gold in the castle, we could cast the spell directly through it like a wand . . . like a giant golden wand."

It's a terrible idea. Hermione would shout at him for even thinking of something so dangerous, and not even Harry would agree to actually do it, but Luna nods. It's not a happy nod. It's the kind that speaks of duty. "Okay," she says. "Are you sure that will work?" And Ron knows that she always tells the truth as she sees it no matter what the consequences, and he knows he was once honest like that in a stupid, careless way, and a part of him still is. He's just been trying to hide it for a long time, so long that he started to forget and began to feel like hiding was the only thing he was still good at.

"Yeah," he says. "It'll work. I'm sure."

_On the first day of the duel, the sun rose, barley seen, into a blood-red sky. On the second day, it was obscured by the overcast and shrouded in white mist and gentle rain, and on the third day, the sun didn't rise at all. It was Harry Potter's eighteenth birthday, and no one will ever know whether he even realized it. Weakened but still arrogant, the Dark Lord sent wave after wave of Death Eaters to attack the boy who lived, but all were brushed easily aside, and Harry Potter wasted little energy to dispose of these unworthy foes. Alone and with no one coming to his aid, he pushed through their ranks until he stood face to face with the Dark Lord himself. _

_Though Harry Potter was stronger, the Dark Lord was dishonorable in his fighting and called upon the darkest of magics to aid him. So there was a great battle between them, and it led over fields and through forests, into dark caves and over hills until finally, on a bare patch of earth, the Dark Lord sent the killing curse at Harry, but the magical shields he had surrounded himself were stronger than Voldemort's will, and their twin wands locked together, enveloping them both in a net of golden light. Fighting with everything he had inside him, Harry forced the magic back towards the Dark Lord, and when he was hit by such power, he instantly shriveled and died. Then Harry fell onto the dry and dusty ground, and for the first time in his life, he let himself rest, while across the country, fireworks went off in his honor, and the world celebrated his victory and an end to the war._

Luna follows Ron to an open courtyard at the center of the castle. He pauses for a moment to look up at the huge towers swaying slightly in the breeze and then takes a deep breath. "This is the best spot, I think."

She nods again and looks down into the bucket she's carrying, which has been leaking out of a small hole in the bottom. "If you're sure."

Ron shrugs. He walks to the base of the castle, and on the bottom stone, he uses his wand to write, _Dedicated for the enjoyment of future generations by Luna Lovegood and Ron Weasley_.If the stones of the castle were stronger or still protected by spells, Ron wouldn't have been able to mark them with such a simple charm, but he watches as the letters sink down as if they've been chiseled there long ago.

Luna walks up beside him, and with her wand she writes, a_nd Draco Malfoy_ just below their names in loopy handwriting, which too sinks down into the stone.

"What did you do that for?" Ron asks rolling his eyes, and Luna gives him a sharper look than he expected.

"He should be remembered too."

"Remembered for what, being a git?"

"Maybe," she says and then, "Yes . . . yes, we should remember people for who they really are, not who we wanted them to be. And he helped, even if he never wanted to and even if he'll never realize it. He helped. We're using his galleons."

Ron nods and follows her back to where she left the bucket on the ground and watches as she begins to empty it onto the cobblestones. "Yeah, someday, someone will read Creevey's stupid book and instead of just believing it, they'll want to know the real story. If we manage it, then they'll see our names here, and they'll know it was us who did this. They'll know we were here too."

She goes still, and for a second, even the falling gold dust seems to hang unmoving in the air. "If we manage it?"

"What?"

"You said if we manage it." She looks nervous, and it's not right to see her look nervous. "What if we don't manage it?"

Ron shrugs, because he can't go on lying now, and he's knows she can tell by his face he was never really sure. So he gives her the truth as far as he can guess it. "Then I doubt they'll be anything left to see."

"Do you know how my mother died?" she asks, and something in her voice tells Ron that he shouldn't interrupt, not even to tell her that the gold on the ground is starting to disappear faster. "She died trying to invent a spell, but something went wrong it backfired."

"Oh," Ron says tonelessly. "We don't have to do this now. We still might not have enough. Maybe it can wait."

Luna shakes her head. "No. It's night. It has to be now."

"It'll take a while for the spell to reach the castle after we do it. Maybe we'll have time to get out, or maybe if we stand back far enough—"

"No." She closes her eyes and splits her wand over her knee. Ron watches silently as a few blue-white sparks rise up into the air and keep floating until they disappear far above the tallest towers. From the cracked wood she gently pulls a unicorn tail hair so thin it looks like the strand of a spider web.

By the time Ron on snaps his wand in two, the full moon is hanging high above the castle and his hands are shaking so badly that it takes a few tries before he can properly pull the shimmering hair out and set it down beside Luna's on the pile of gold dust and Malfoy's galleons.

He takes a deep, shaky breath and wonders whether he's being brave or just stupid and if the only way to tell the difference between the two is to wait and see if everything works out well in the end.

Gently, Luna grabs his hand and pulls it down beside her own into the gold, and for a few seconds he feels the magic spreading through his entire body, stronger than he's ever felt it before. Their eyes meet briefly, and then they each look up towards the castle and say the words.

You know that you're stretched out on the floor of the potions laboratory, even if you don't remember falling asleep, just that you had the kind of strange dream that starts out as a nightmare, until you realize that it's your nightmare, and you realize it doesn't have to be, so it isn't any longer. You change things around until they're just as you like them. That's how the best dreams always are. In order to turn out right in the end they have to start out dark and horrible. You fight against the part of yourself that's still half-sleeping to try and pull back some details, a few images or words strung together. There's a dull ache in your back and a sharp pain in your stomach, as if someone kicked you there, and there's a voice in your head that sounds familiar but feels distant.

"_Malfoy, Draco was it? Ah yes, I remember you. Not very good tempered but loyal— yes blindly loyal and quite able to work hard— able to work obsessively when you got it in your head to do so."_ You feel a strange weight over face that you didn't notice at first, because everything felt so strange, but it's quickly becoming suffocating, and the voice in your head continues. _"You wanted to be a Slytherin, but I always thought you would have done well in—"_

Your arms feel heavy, and your fingers twist themselves uselessly together as you try to lift a rather dingy piece of cloth up from over your eyes and slap it with your hand to stop the voice. Seconds later, a sword falls on top of your head followed by a stone— the philosopher's stone.

You don't understand how it got there. You're not done making it. There were other stages. There were supposed to be stories and more incantations. You had the book— the book about Potter, but you're not sure where it is now, and the cloth that was over your head is actually the sorting hat, and the sword lying on the ground has the name _Godric Gryffindor _emblazoned over the blade.

The philosopher's stone is sitting in your lap, and you're afraid to touch it or even look at it too closely. And you don't know what scares you more, that it might turn out to be a fake, that your efforts were all wasted and you truly did fail, or that it might not be fake, that you might have really pulled it from nothing, and you wonder if a person can ever be the same after doing something like that. You reach down with one tentative finger and there's a rush of energy all through your body as you brush its surface. It's warm and glowing softly and pulsating in a steady, definite rhythm, like a heart beating in your hands. You take a deep breath, and to your surprise, you don't choke or cough from the thick smoke hanging in the air.

Things like this are supposed to happen to Potter, not you. You knew the difficulty of what you were attempting, and for all your arrogance, you never really expected to get it, not like this. Things don't come to you easily, not things that can't be bought or blackmailed or stolen, not things that matter. But maybe things didn't come all that easily to Potter while he was alive. He certainly wasn't that bright. He only got the grades he did because professors felt sorry for him having to be the boy who lived and all that rot. And you may never have beaten him to the snitch, but he lost third year to Diggory. And he was a disaster at chess. You blink, and you wonder how you could know that but decide that by the look of him, it's easy enough to tell he was never one for strategy— the same with Occlumency, really— he certainly never learned that. You blink again and look down at the stone, still very real in your hands. Perhaps doing ridiculously stupid, dangerous things pays off, even for people who aren't Potter, even for bumbling fools not worth a proper mention in stupid books.

The problem with not really expecting to succeed from the beginning is that now you find yourself holding what may be the most powerful magical artifact ever created and having no idea what to do with it. Its throbbing is getting quicker, and it's reaching out to you, to whatever part of you wanted to live forever. '_Make the elixir. Make the elixir. The rest is so simple.' _And it scares you. You don't want your life prolonged only to have it ruled by something other than yourself, and you don't need to make gold, really, though your pocket does seem mysteriously empty.

You've been advised to be careful what you wish for often enough. It's what Snape said the night you told him you wanted to receive the mark and follow the Dark Lord's cause wherever it would take you. And now, you're here, back in the potions dungeon of a Hogwarts very different from the one you knew as a student. And you think that being disappointed with the things you once longed for is far worse than receiving nothing at all.

The energy is still pouring off the philosopher's stone in waves, and you can see it shimmering around the edge of your vision. The stone walls twist and change shape, and strange shadows gather around you, nonsense-beasts with crumpled horns or spiraling long necks, lumbering across the floor and flying through the air on invisible wings. This isn't real, you try to tell yourself, but a stronger voice cuts through your thoughts. '_The rest is so simple. You'll die if you don't. You'll die if you don't._'

You take a deep breath, wishing for the world and your head to slow their spinning. Flamel never wrote about this. He said the stone had power, certainly, and Potter said something about having to not want it for yourself. You blink. And you and try to shake away all thoughts of Potter— Potter, who is dead— Potter, who probably wasn't the least bit afraid to die.

You're not afraid now, not like you were when you started, and you wonder what changed. Nothing in you is burning or freezing, and despite a stomach ache, which is likely caused by hunger, your insides aren't in knots. You're not feeling particularly violent or jumpy either. And if Potter were here, you would much rather listen to him list his past embarrassments and failures again than try to kill him, which wouldn't really do anything at all. You blink. It was a dream, you think. And you finally start to pull back some memories from it, but the memories seem far too real.

You don't hate him. And once you thought that if you gave that hate up it would leave you with nothing left inside, but there's still something there, something strange that you're not ready to think about. The stone is still calling to you, but a voice of your own is rising above it. You have to see Potter again. You have to make him absolutely miserable. He said you wouldn't get the stone, but you did. You proved him wrong. And he said he wouldn't see you after you had it, and you have to. You have to prove him wrong . . . again . . . even if you have to die to do it.

The stone is glowing in your hand like a miniature sun and bouncing up and down, as if trying to take flight. You could make the elixir now. You could take it just once for the promise of a long life, but then the fear will come back, and you'll make it again, trading away your sanity for just a few more years spent alone with your horded gold, finally living up to your name. If you use it, you won't be able to stop. It will destroy you— whoever you really are and however pathetic some people might think you— you don't want to lose yourself

You look back to the stone, now floating a few centimeters above tour hand— powerful and beautiful and proof of an impossible achievement, of you doing something that even Potter could not do. You look at it, and you don't want it. You close your eyes and imagine the veil blowing outwards and the darkness spreading across the floor to meet you with soft, steady whispers and the promise of everything that comes after.

You stand up, still holding the stone, which seems unnaturally heavy for something of its size. You think, for a second, that maybe you could do something with it, something for the good of the world, but you've never cared too much about that. You haven't changed that much, and there are still some things you want only for yourself.

It would be dark if not for the light of the stone, but no darker than whatever lies beyond the veil. And the air not reached the stone's warmth is cold. You suppress a slight shiver and then realize that there isn't anyone staring at you anymore, so you let your shoulders shake and your teeth chatter. The sorting hat is fraying and dusty from lying on the floor, but so are you. And you only feel slightly foolish putting it on your head, content at least that no one will ever see you like this.

You take the sword with you too, because you think you'll need it for what you must do, and because you'll be able to sell it when you're done and get at least a fraction of the gold you could have had otherwise. You know that even a fake Potter artifact will fetch a decent price in the least reputable stores of Knockturn alley.

You make your way up the stairs and outside onto a cobbled path of one of the small central courtyards. It's night, and that doesn't mean much to you in terms of counting the hours, because you're not even sure of the date. But there is something comforting about the darkened sky, something restful and calming, like the gentle rain that keeps falling after a storm or returning home after being too long away.

You know you can't let yourself rest yet, but you tell yourself that you will soon. And you throw the philosopher's stone down, hoping it will break, but it doesn't. So you use the sword to cut it. You try slices first, steady and even, but that doesn't work, nor does using it as a saw, which only leaves a slight dent and a few scratches. _"Godric would have split it down the middle— easy,"_ says the hat, and you start at first and then shrug.

"From what I hear, he was better practiced with people."

"_I didn't say I wanted him here now, did I?"_

"It was implied," you think back at it, clenching your teeth, and you try to stab the stone through its center, but only end up taking a few chips of the sides.

"_Come on, boy. Put your back into it."_

"Shut up!"

"_I was told earlier that if I gave advice to you children, you would listen. Now, concentrate, and try to follow through with your swing." _

The stone is still calling, still trying to reach you, but its voice is weakened or at least drowned out by your own thoughts and the hat's not-so–helpful encouragement.

"_Malfoy, it is vitally important that you break that stone, NOW!" _

Your ears are still ringing as you lift the sword over your head, and your whole body shakes as it smashes through the stone, shattering it into hundreds of pieces. You're sent of balance by the force of the blow echoing in your shoulders and in your chest. And you topple over onto the grass, which proves quite fortunate, because right then, a giant, shining stream of white-gold sparks rips through the air just where you had been standing.

The power of it makes you feel weak and lightheaded, and you wonder if the battle has finally reached here too and what kind of army it would take to throw such a spell. You wonder if that means the end. _"Get a hold of yourself,"_ the hat whispers to you, smugly amused, and you don't even bother to try. Your thoughts come fast, but time itself seems to slow. You watch the light as it floats down toward the fragments of the stone and shoots off again as it is reflected in a thousand directions. And you lie there, breathing hard in the center of this web of bright light and strong magic, using one hand to clutch the sword to your chest and the other to search your robe pockets for your wand.

Slowly, the light changes color from gold to red, and you notice that the stone has disappeared. The castle is shuddering and starting to take on a soft glow, and you pull yourself up and run along the path until you come upon small pile of shining dust and a few galleons that look remarkably familiar.

"Don't touch it!" you hear someone shout, just as you reach down to pick up your coins, and you notice that they're fizzling with a strange sort of energy and look like they have been half melted.

"It's still too hot," you hear another, softer voice say, and you turn to see the weasel and Loony Lovegood peeking out behind a corner of wall.

"Weasel," you say with a sneer, "resorted to picking pockets, have you? I should have known it was you who stole my money. Even out of your _poor_ excuse for a family, you're the only one pathetic enough to—"

"M-Malfoy!" Weasley shouts. "Malfoy, you're alive!"

You raise your eyebrows at him. "I say, Weasley, you really do get stupider by the second."

"You're alive . . ." he says again with a smile. "Bloody hell!"

He looks far happier than he should, and he hasn't yet realized that you've just insulted him or his family. This is not the reaction you expected, but you try not to stumble, and you sneer again and roll your eyes for good measure. "Of course I'm alive."

"And we're alive too," Lovegood says in her half-there half-not voice.

"Wow!" Weasley shouts, rubbing his hand over the castle. "It worked! I mean, I knew it would work . . ."

There's a strange glint in his eyes, and you tighten your grip around the hilt of the sword and pull it back up to your chest. "What worked?"

"It did!" he shouts, moving his hand quickly from one stone to another. "We did it! I can't believe we actually did it! You did it too, Malfoy. You made the light go all wonky. I thought we were going to blow a hole in something and get ourselves killed! It was too strong, but whatever you put on the path deflected it or reflected it or something like that!" He pauses for a moment to take a deep breath and leans his back against the castle before shouting again. "We did it!"

"Did what?" you ask, but nobody answers. Weasley looks like he's about to start jumping up and down, and Lovegood smiles and presses her ear to the castle wall, as if listening for a heartbeat. Then she starts to laugh.

"It'll fade, right?" Weasley asks her, suddenly sounding tentative and resigned. "It won't be like this forever?"

"No, not fade," she says with a very odd smile. "It'll go deeper. It won't leave ever again."

"What on earth are you two on about?" you ask in a louder voice, and Weasley turns to you looking a bit more like the bad tempered idiot Gryffindor you remember.

"Touch it, Malfoy!" he growls.

And you shrug, and reach your hand out for the castle. When your fingers meet the stone, you feel a shock of magic running through your body that makes the power that came off the philosopher's stone feel like nothing at all. "Wow," you breathe, and in your head, the sorting hat starts murmuring about how it feels like home, but it doesn't feel like anything you've imagined before.

The philosopher's stone wanted to take something from you. It only offered its use in exchange for a part of yourself you weren't willing to give up. But this— the magic you feel now— you wouldn't be able to resist sacrificing anything to it, even if you are stronger now than before. _"No," _the hat whispers, _"Too much has already been lost."_ And you feel that too. You feel the way it gives, wanting nothing in return. You feel the memories of a castle, shifting stairways and towers rising up to meet the clouds and the footsteps of generations, who came and left and should never have been forgotten.

You let the sword fall to the ground so you can put both hands flat on the surface the wall. If you had the philosopher's stone, you would be able to keep going forever, but not really live, not gain anything, certainly nothing like this. You could have been alive for a thousand years, or longer than that, or longer than anyone has ever lived before without learning a single thing from it. _"I can tell you,"_ the hat says softly, echoing what you already feel in your hands. _"If you listen, I can tell you."_

You tear yourself away, just for a second, and even in the dark, you can see Weasley smirking at you. "So?" he asks.

You take a deep breath. "That's new."

"Yes," Lovegood says. "It's only a few seconds new, actually or a few seconds old. I'm not sure which is right. You're wearing the sorting hat, you know."

"Yeah, it looks good," Weasley adds with a sharper smirk. "It really hides your pointy head." You blink and let your fingers find the wall again. He's making fun of you, but he's making fun of you the same way he probably made fun of Potter's terrible hair or Granger's unfortunate teeth, and Lovegood's looking at you as if you're the one who's crazy, but you don't care.

You turn back to the castle, and every place you touch seems to offer new secrets. You look closely and see that there are tiny cracks in all of the stones that have been filled in with gold, and you remember what Weasley said just moments ago. You did this, all of you. Somehow, through their spell and the stone you kept the Hogwarts from falling. The hat tells you to look down and shifts itself forward so that you can't help nod towards the ground, and you see that Weasley and Lovegood have carved their names carved into one of the large stones at the castle's base. You kneel to get closer and see the way each letter is shining and golden, and your eyes go wide when you see your name there too. "What?" you ask, looking up at them and then pointing back at the wall. "What is this?"

Weasley mumbles something inaudible and turns very red, and Lovegood smiles, as if she has some wonderful secret. "Come on," she says, grabbing you by the arm. "Lets see the rest of it."

You could find the wand somewhere in your pockets or pick up the sword at your feet and be done with both of them as soon as you'd like. You could start a fight and shove her away or insult Weasley again. You could just tell her no and stay there staring at your name in the stone, seemingly untouched by the darkness of night. But instead, you let them both pull you to your feet, and you follow behind them along the faint trail of golden dust.

There are whispers rising up from the battlefields that something big has happened, though no one can be sure exactly what. For a few seconds, everyone's eyes turn to the north, and those gifted with the strongest sight claim that there are strange lights rising up into the sky. A few drop their packs and scurry up trees to see farther. Some declare that the light comes only from lingering dust burning orange with the sunset. Some tell faint fireworks shooting up amongst the stars. Others say there is nothing at all to see.

It takes a few minutes, this time, for everyone to fall back into their places— to give members of the opposition back the wands that may one day be used to curse them. And despite the dark and the exhaustion that now comes so quickly after day has begun, the fighting continues. Because things change, but never easily.

Sometimes, when someone recognizes an enemy in a curse-hole or in the courtyard of a castle, they will kill them, and sometimes they will be killed. It's difficult for anything else to happen. Nobody wants to be the first to lay down their wand. It's a gamble, they know, and a chance, and they have only their lives left to bet with. But it's easier to trust an old friend or dorm-mate or Quidditch rival, even if they wear a different mark on their arm. It's easier to believe in someone who once shared a school and a home— still hard, but easier— possible. The war will end, one day. One day, enough people will take that chance.

Far away, Hogwarts stands over the rocks as straight and as strong as it had when it was first built, and it shines softly in the moonlight in a way that it never has before. There were deaths then, a thousand years ago, just before the shielding spells were woven through the stones. There were deaths so no one without magic could tell of what they'd seen— twisting towers and moving staircases. But now, that sword has been left behind, and three people step out of the front archway onto the cool grass beneath the stars and the shadow of the castle.

Luna looks into the forest and waves companionably to a few black horses with wings like pressed leather.

Ron stares out onto the lake and notices that the water seems to have risen and is clearly reflecting the night sky.

And Draco lights his wand and watches the sparks of gold still swirling through the air. Then he turns back to the school. It will open again, and it will teach magic— spells and charms and potions and things far more important. On his head, the sorting hat begins to sing a new song that only he can hear, and he smiles.

**The End**


End file.
